596 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. 11. No. 44. 



were washed fi-om their boats to be barely res- 

 cued and resuscitated by their mates ; yet day 

 after day, for more than three months, the fleet 

 pushed on. The party was a picked one from 

 among the hardiest of frontiersmen, and the 

 record of their coolness, courage and fidelity 

 through ceaseless toil and in the face of hourly 

 peril is a picture of the nobility of manhood 

 done in strong colors. But at last the expedi- 

 tion reaches a roaring cataract more forbidding 

 than those already passed, and at the sight of 

 it the spirit of the senior boatman is broken ; he 

 and others regard it as certain death to attempt 

 the passage, and decide to trust themselves 

 rather to the inhospitable deserts. There is no 

 mutiny — the situation is far too desperate — all 

 are alike in the valley of the shadow ; but all 

 night long the leader paces up and down a little 

 path on a few yards of sand beach by the river 

 side, weighing the chances. At daybreak he 

 decides to go on, and secures anew the waver- 

 ing allegiance of one after another of the party ; 

 but three will not be persuaded, and set out 

 over the rocks — to their death. The leader, 

 with his five companions, shoots the cataract 

 more easily than anticipated, and three days 

 later reaches the mouth of the Rio Virgen. with 

 friendly pioneers already on the lookout for 

 their wreckage. 



In his preface the author says, ' The explora- 

 tion was not made for adventure, but purely 

 for scientific purposes, geographic and geologic, 

 and I had no intention of writing an account of 

 it, but only of recording the scientific results; ' 

 and although the chapters are of thrilling in- 

 terest as a record of adventure alone, yet from 

 beginning to end of the adventurous expedition 

 the primary purpose was kept in view ; direc- 

 tions and distances were platted and checked 

 by sextant observations that the river might be 

 mapped ; the rocks were studied that the 

 geologic history of resources of the province 

 might be made known ; the turbulent stream 

 was studied as a geologic agent, and the effects 

 of storms, tributaries, and changes in declivity 

 were examined to the end that the processes of 

 river work might be better understood. Despite 

 the severity of the trip, few days passed without 

 the record of important scientific observations 

 or generalizations. 



The fijial chapter describes the Grand Canyon 

 as a geographic feature, as a record of geologic 

 product and process, and as one of the most 

 impressive scenic features of the world. "The 

 Grand Canyon is a gorge 217 miles in length, 

 through which flows a great river with many 

 storm-born tributaries. It has a winding way, 

 as rivers are wont to have. Its banks are vast 

 structures of adamant, piled up in forms rarely 

 seen in the mountains" (page 379). The 

 author's impressions of the gorge as a scenic 

 feature are best expressed in his own words: 



" The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be ade- 

 quately represented in symbols of speech, nor by 

 speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are 

 taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray 

 its features. Language and illustration combined 

 must fail. The elements that unite to make the 

 Grand Canyon the most sublime spectacle in nature 

 are multifarious and exceedingly diverse. The 

 Cyclopean forms which result from the sculpture of 

 tempests through ages too long for man to compute, 

 are wrought into endless debiils, to describe which 

 would be a task equal in magnitude to that of de- 

 scribing the stars of the heavens or the multitudinous 

 beauties of the forest with its traceries of foliage pre- 

 sented by oak aud pine and poplar, by beech and 

 linden and hawthorn, by tulip and lily and rose, and 

 by fern and moss and lichen. Besides the elements 

 of form, there are elements of color, for here the colors 

 of the heavens are rivaled by the colors of the rocks. 

 The rainbow is not more replete with hues. But 

 form and color do not exhaust all the divine qualities 

 of the Grand Canyon. It is the land of music. The 

 river thunders in perpetual roar, swelling in floods 

 of music when tlie storm gods play upon the rocks 

 and fading away in soft and low murmurs when the 

 infinite blue of heaven is unveiled. With the melody 

 of the great tide rising and falling, swelling and 

 vanishing forever, other melodies are heard in the 

 gorges of the lateral canyons, while the waters 

 plunge in the rapids among the rocks or leap in great 

 cataracts. Thus the Grand Canyon is a land of song. 

 Mountains of music swell in the rivers, hills of music 

 billow in the creeks, and meadows of music murmur 

 in the rills that ripple over the rocks. Altogether it 

 is a symphony of multitudinous melodies. All this 

 is the music of waters. The adamant foundations of 

 the earth have been wrought into a sublime harp, 

 upon which the clouds of the heavens play with 

 mighty tempests or with gentle showers. 



"The glories and the beauties of form, color and 

 sound unite in the Grand Canvon — forms unrivaled 



